Bitter is the Sweet
by DealingDearie
Summary: Five POV oneshots about certain points in The Hunger Games.
1. Prim

She looks up suddenly and her honey colored hair seems just a little brighter, her ocean eyes just a little sharper. Katniss is there, just down the street, and Prim thinks

for the briefest moment that maybe she'll smile, maybe her sister will laugh with the relief so plainly potent in her shouts. The girl doesn't even have time to wonder,

though, doesn't have a chance to think about why Katniss is shouting in the first place, before she hears a clicking noise. Then, it's like the world goes still, everything

slowing in midair, like the stray wisps of Katniss' dark hair as they curl around her dirtied face, or like the strained eyes of the citizens as they run, or maybe even the

lone sound of a bird chirping, a Mockingjay, she thinks with clarity. She might say that she feels nothing, has no sense of anything but the confusion clouding her mind,

but that would be a lie. There's a pinpoint of _something_ at the middle of her back and it feels as if a hole is being burned there. Prim forces her lips to form her sister's

name, the same name she's spoken countless times before, the same name that she would whisper as she fell asleep, and the same name that volunteered to take her

place knowing that it would never be spoken again. Her eyes have no time to widen before the world spins back into focus, before her hair flies in front of her face and

she thinks, for just a snippet of time, how lovely it might have looked in the sun, how brightly it might have shined if it were ever properly cleaned, and the blast takes

her, rips the name from her lips before it even has a chance to reach Katniss' ears, and she's gone.

**All rights belong to their respectful owners. I own nothing. Please R&R! :)**


	2. Peeta

Maybe he knows, and maybe he doesn't. Maybe she's just going along with whatever he created before the games, or maybe she's not just pretending. But when she

leans in to kiss him, to press her chapped lips against his, he really only cares about how soft her skin is. Peeta doesn't even notice the pain in his leg, doesn't mind the

imminent threat of death looming over their heads, he just cares about her, cares about her smile and her laugh and her life. He wonders if this is what his parents felt

when they were younger, or maybe it only happens to people who have no other choice than to turn to one another. Later, he hardly takes any notice as she slips out of

the small, dank cave and into the night, hardly shifts in his sleep. His eyelids flutter with the dream of her hand in his, the feel of her laugh against his neck. Maybe it's

his imagination, or maybe even a hopeless fantasy, but he has no other explanation for the way she makes his heart pound in his chest.

**Please R&R! ;)**


	3. Katniss

If she predicted this, she'll never tell. All she knows are the primroses carefully planted in her garden, the faint laughs of the children as they play, and the comforting

arms of her husband. Peeta still looks at her sometimes, with a foreign and blank glint in his bright blue eyes, and she'll hug him tightly, knowing that the false

memories are just too real. And sometimes, when they're not laughing at their kids, the ones with eyes the color of hope and laughs the sound of innocence, she'll wake

up screaming, her limbs thrashing and her body rigid, and he'll hold her and kiss her head until she falls asleep in his arms, his melodic voice whispering a familiar song,

and she'll dream of her little Primrose and her precious Rue, wishing with everything she had that she still knew their kind smiles.

**Please R&R! :)**


	4. Gale

So it wasn't meant to be. They weren't destined to run off together, to live as happily as they possibly could in their freedom, to love and die old and withered. He's

alright with that, though, because she doesn't love him anymore, not like she used to. Her heart is in too much pain and if he tried to console her, she'd tear his world

apart with the bite of her words. He lets Peeta do the comforting, the loving and the mending, just what his Catnip needs. He leaves and doesn't ever intend to come

back, doesn't even intend to do anything he once thought was his only goal in life. Yes, he'll leave her and she won't even give him a second thought. But he convince

s himself that he's fine with it, perfectly content with the fact that he'll never be missed, undoubtedly happy with how happy she'll be in a few years, and he imagines

her children, the same children he used to dream up himself, with brown hair and olive green eyes. Only now they'll have blonde hair and blue eyes and his heart aches

in his chest.

**Please R&R! :)**


	5. Rue

It wasn't guaranteed, no. Her life, her freedom, it was always forfeit. But she at least felt something, and she won't say it was hope because it certainly wasn't, when

she met Katniss Everdeen, the girl on fire, the other half of the famed star-crossed lovers doomed to die in the Hunger Games. Maybe it was pity, Rue thinks as she

stands before the tanned teenaged girl just a few years her superior, or maybe it was the fact that there, curled up in a tree with a burned leg, was a kindred spirit, and

a fiery one at that. Neither girl wanted to die, but they knew that they wouldn't live. Or, at least, Rue knew she wouldn't live. Rue always had faith in Katniss, in her one

and only friend, and the fact that Katniss is indeed her only friend just makes it worse when Katniss screams as she turns to face her. The dark haired girl from District

Twelve looks stunned and there's grief written in her eyes. Rue doesn't feel it, really, and she looks down and is surprised at how numb she's gone, but then realizes it's

the blood that she's losing too fast for her liking…because there's a spear lodged in her gut.

**Please R&R. :) Thanks for reading! **


End file.
